Glulam bamboo has been preliminarily explored for use as a structural building material, and its stress–strain model under axial loading has a fundamental role in the analysis of bamboo components. To study the tension and compression behaviour of glulam bamboo, the bamboo scrimber and laminated bamboo as two kinds of typical glulam bamboo materials were tested under axial loading. Their mechanical behaviour and failure modes were investigated. The results showed that the bamboo scrimber and laminated bamboo have similar failure modes. For tensile failure, bamboo fibres were ruptured with sawtooth failure surfaces shown as brittle failure; for compression failure, the two modes of compression are buckling and compression shear failure. The stress–strain relationship curves of the bamboo scrimber and laminated bamboo are also similar. The tensile stress–strain curves showed a linear relationship, and the compressive stress–strain curves can be divided into three stages: elastic, elastoplastic and post-yield. Based on the test results, the stress–strain model was proposed for glulam bamboo, in which a linear equation was used to describe the tensile stress–strain relationship and the Richard–Abbott model was employed to model the compressive stress–strain relationship. A comparison with the experimental results shows that the predicted results are in good agreement with the experimental curves.
Stress–strain relationship model of glulam bamboo under axial loading